Sydney

After a great four days with Jono at his place, I went just a few minutes down the road to Jeff's apartment, set right on the southern tip of Bondi Beach. I met Jeff, from Dallas, while in Prague with J.D. in May of 2006. Me and J.D were walking out of a club when we saw a group of American guys waiting in a long line. We told them not to bother going in, as the place was filled with dudes, and we kept on walking. The following night we ran into the same group of guys and ended up hanging with them the next three nights. Over the years, Jeff and I kept in touch, mostly exchanging stories about our travels. He spent a couple of years working in London as a tax consultant and then returned back to Dallas for a little bit. Just before I left for Thailand, he drove up from Dallas to hang out when I went down to Austin, and he told me that his company was transferring him to Sydney shortly after that. So, the moral of the story is... keep in touch with people, because you never know when you're going to cross paths again. I met a guy outside of a random club in a random European city, and now I am sitting on the couch in his apartment, overlooking the waves crashing on Bondi Beach.

Sydney has been pretty cool so far. After a fun weekend of going out and getting to know the city's nightlife, I started the sightseeing on Monday. Jeff took off from work and we started out with the basic walking tour, visiting some memorials and historic sights. The architecture of the city is quite fascinating. After cruising through a large botanical garden we saw the world famous Sydney Opera House.

Today I took some buses and trains across the city to get to Darling Harbour, another iconic Sydney site. The Harbour is mostly surrounded by expensive hotels and restaurants, but back in the day it was home to numerous industrial factories. It was really nice to walk around and watch everyone sitting around the Harbour, enjoying the nice weather with a book, some on their lunch break, or just sitting. I figure I'll do a day or two more of site seeing before I start the surfing. I know once I get on the board I'm not gonna get off, which is why I am knocking out all the site seeing first. The weather here is warm, but it is not beach weather anymore. The majority of people left on Bondi are surfers, as it cools down at night enough for a longsleeve shirt.

ANZAC Day, Rugy, and Aussie Rules Football

Yesterday, here in Australia, was the national holiday known as ANZAC Day, commemorating their fallen troops. Along with parades and fire works, each bar and pub hosts a game called Two Up. Two Up involves two coins on a wooden paddle. Prior to a person flipping the paddle, everyone in the crowd places bets amongst each other as to whether the coins will land heads or tails. There is one coin flipper for the whole bar, standing on a platform with a judge who shouts the results. If the two coins flipped land on both heads and tails, everyone boos and the coins must be flipped again. If the coin flipper throws a "no result" three times, he/she must get down and do push ups in front of a chanting crowd. You don't want to be that guy... You don't want to be that guy. This event is fun for everyone because it is the only day in which Two Up is legal. It was a game played by Australian soldiers back in World War I, the reason why it is only legal on ANZAC Day. Some people bet $100, $50, $20, or as little as $5. I found $5 on the floor, bet tails, and lost.

I got a heavy dose of the Aussie sports scene, too. I saw a Rugby game at a small stadium, and it was very confusing at first, but I caught on quickly. There's actually two forms of Rugby; Rugby Union and Rugby League. The rules are slightly different. Now, Aussie Rules Football is a an awesome game. Played with a Rugby ball, the idea is to bring the ball all the way down to the endzone, but points are only scored when you kick it through a field goal-like structure. You can pass the ball via punching it and kicking it to teammates, and can tackle and wrestle the ball away just like in Rugby. It's a rough game, but very cool. But it can be difficult because being an amazing athlete isn't enough. You must be a very good kicker as well.

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Sydney

Hey guys and gals. Well, I'm rested up and rejuvenated in Sydney, Australia at my fav mate Jono's house. I met Jono, along with a couple other people I'm visiting in Sydney, while on my Birthright trip to Israel two summers ago. I haven't done too much sight seeing yet. I rested up all of yesterday and took it easy, then went out to a club with Jono and his girlfriend Sarah, who is from Philly and I also met on the Birthright trip, but now lives and works in Sydney. So prior to hitting the club, I was debriefed on the social differences between Australia and the States:

• No one "grinds" when they dance in Australia.
  

Ya just kind of dance near eachother.

• When you go out, you dress up.

In New York, you have your posh clubs where you dress up and pay crazy cover charges and walk around like an asshole all night with your $18 drinks. But then you also have your bars and small clubs where you can dress however you want and pay for normally priced drinks. But in Sydney, every place is considered "dressy" and there is no such place as a grungy dive bar. So, sport coats and suits are a norm. I wore a crummy button down that was buried deep in my backpack and had to borrow a pair of nice shoes three sizes too big. It was that or risk not getting in.

Jono's house is very interesting. His parents are orthodox Jews, and Jono's grandparents are Holocaust survivors from Poland. They were liberated from Auschwitz and immigrated to Sydney in the late 1940's. As some of you may or may not know, Orthodox Jews do not mix milk and meat products during meals. So in the Jono household, there are seperate sinks, microwaves, silverware, stoves, and table cloths for milk and meat. We had Shabbis dinner last night (the Jewish Sabbath) and had a wonderful mix of Challah bread and hummus.

I love good hummus, especially when there are people involved.

The picture below is from Israel two summers ago. Jono is far left, Warren is in the middle, and Sarah is kind of in the picture far right.

Rock.

Just got into Sydney... can't keep my eyes open... visiting a bunch of friends here... staying at my friend Jono's house, I met him in Israel two summers ago... I'll write again when my eyes want to open.

Can I Buy You a Beer From 7-11?

After a couple of days of air conditioning, a big comfortable bed, a television, and fast and free internet at Eli's brother, Richy's, apartment, I went back to the main back packer street of Khao San Rd. to enjoy my last couple of days in Thailand. Tim, who I met at the Full Moon Party and travelled with for a couple weeks, is back in Bangkok too, so we got a room together. He was one of the twelve other solo travellers who all buddied up during that week, and now that I think about it, I can't believe that was almost six weeks ago. So, it's only proper that we leave Thailand with a big bang, and I'm really happy that I get to close out the country with one of my favorite guys I've met in Thailand.

It's funny being back in Bangkok. When I first got here on January 29th I hated it. I was some poor shmuck with a big backpack on, being tugged left and right by Thai guys trying to get me into their taxis, Indian guys asking me if I wanted to try on a suit, annoying Thai women yelling "you want massaaaage?", and a creeper asking me if I wanted to check out a ping-pong show (take a wild guess what a ping-pong show is). But after being in Thailand for 12 weeks, you learn that it's part of travelling here and you get accustomed to it. You learn how to playfully deflect the annoying hawkers in your face all the time by telling the Indian guy that it's 150 degrees outside, what the fuck am I gonna do with a suit, asking the massage ladies how much they would pay if instead I gave them a massage, and telling the creeper that I'll only go to the ping-pong show if he was performing.

Tim and I ran into a guy we knew from a few islands back and hung out with him and his couple of friends for the night. Depending on where you are, sometimes a really fun way of spending the night is getting a dirt cheap beer at 7-11 (there's a million of them here), sitting on the curb outside, and enjoying the hustle and bustle go by, making cracks at everything and everyone. And if the street is filled with clubs and expensive bars, it's the absolute cheapest way to enjoy the evening. One of the English guys with us called to a pretty blonde girl walking passed. He introduced himself as did she, and in the most sincere way he asked her, "Can I buy you a beer from 7-11?" The four of us couldn't control the laughter that followed.

I saw a guy wearing a Boston Red Sox hat. I asked him if he was from Boston. He playfully responded with, "I don't wear this hat for nothing." So I gave him a high five and said, "Fuck the Patriots." But, we were all joking, and he was actually a really cool guy. He and his girlfriend just recently got finished taking bicycles and riding all the way from Bangkok down through Malaysia into Singapore. Pretty cool.

My flight takes off tomorrow at 4 p.m., arriving in Hong Kong whenever. I wait an hour then get on a plane to Sydney, arriving the next day. I'll try to write something tomorrow before I leave, as I hope to have a good story from my last night in Bangkok.

I'm Okay

Just wanted to write and let everyone know that I am safe. There have been some problems in Bangkok over the last few days and it is dying down now. Political riots have taken over certain parts of the city, and although only a few people have been killed, buses have been set on fire and military tanks have been brought in. I was hundreds of miles away from Bangkok when the protests were at it's peak, and luckily, Bangkok was the only location where riots were taking place. So I was totally fine.

But I am in Bangkok now and everything is pretty much settled... so no worries!

Phuket and the Songkran Festival

Phuket... the wealthiest and most expensive province in Thailand and most commonly pronounced, foo-ket. But poo-ket, as it is correctly pronounced, has more interesting twists and turns than an old school M. Night Shyamalan movie. I arrived in Patong Beach, undoubtedly one of the richest towns in all of Thailand. It was like stepping back into the real world again, running past McDonald's and Starbucks just like I did in Ko Samui. But Ko Samui has nothing on Patong's shopping mall, complete with all the stores we have back home. There was even a movie theater in it, which I thought was pretty cool. That night I went to see Fast and the Furious 4, which I liked, but going to see it was more about experiencing a foreign theater. This town was so expensive, I didn't eat in a restaurant for two days, I just ate street food... which is fine, it's all part of the experience.

Patong Beach wins the award for being the sleaziest, cheesiest, and most awesome town all at the same time. What's weird about this place is that it is a family destination as well as a town filled with hookers, lady boys, and sketchy European dudes looking to "try things for the first time". All day long you see husbands and wives holding thier young children's hands, but when the sun goes down and dinner's over, the strips of bars open up, the corny, pony tail-wearing men come out, and the LadyBoys start shakin' their... whatever the hell it is they got down there.

What was significant about my experience at Patong Beach was that it was during the Songkarn Festival, the Thai New Year. Simply put, the Thai New Year is an all out water fight. Thousands of people fill the streets with Super Soakers and buckets in hand, and you just start firing away at people. And if you don't have a Super Soaker, you stand at one of the bars next to a big tub of water and splash passer byers. You will not and cannot stay dry. I was soaking wet head to toe from 11:30 a.m. until 2:00 a.m. And no one is exempt from getting soaked... policeman, guy driving a motorbike, old wrinkled woman, they're all getting wet. I would have loved to have recorded a video of the event, but it was an absolute impossibility, as the moment I stepped outside I was hit in all directions by water guns and hoses.

Walking down the street early in the day, Super Soaker in hand, I teammed up with three guys from Seattle and we had a day soaking and getting soaked. We joined a bar's team with other people that were drinking there and protected the bar from other "soakers". We posted up and unleashed on anyone walking by, often singling out an unlucky fellow wearing shorts that were just alittle too short by American standards. So along with the Seattle guys, we had some Aussies, Scandavians, and loud screaming Thai girls. Whenever I saw someone walk by wearing a Yankees hat, I made everyone understand why that person needed to be absolutely drowned in water. Luckily, one of the Seattle boys was a 'Sox fan, so atleast he truly understood the fury behind it. Thai guys and Europan guys wearing these Yanks hats probably had no idea what "Fuck you, you Yankee fuck!" meant, but they all still deserved the 8-on-1 water malay. I saw one guy wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey and a Thai guy wearing a Rutgers Football shirt, so I made sure their ears were filled with as much water as possible.

Because we were getting wet every minute of the day, we went out that night wearing nothing special. I wore a pair of mesh shorts and a ripped up white tee, without any underwear. This served to be quite problematic, as "the tuck" became my biggest ally of the night. The club scene is a blast, as long as you are skilled in the art of fighting off ladies, boys, and ladyboys grabbing at your crotch all night.

Just so you have evidence that I am not exaggerating any of this, enjoy this You Tube clip of last year's Festival...